It had been a long day. One of those days when you just want to go home, curl up with a blanket and a hot cup of tea, and watch your favorite movie until your eyelids fall heavy with sleep. Work was difficult. What else is new? I was walking my normal path down Broad Street, becoming ever closer to the comfortable haven I call home. It was a nice evening; the air was cool, crisp. I hugged my jacket a little tighter as the breeze blew by and glanced to my far right. Something had caught my eye. A large group of people, some holding multi colored signs with pictures of Plato on them, had gathered in front of a building. Subconsciously, my feet turned toward the direction of the group; I wanted to take a closer look.
The building they marched in front of seemed never ending. The architecture was long and strange with thick stained glass windows that were almost impossible to see through. I glanced over a few heads to try and make out the name that was etched over the front door of the wondrous masterpiece.
“Ramage’s Rhetorical Reasoning, Inc.” I read aloud, “I’ve heard of this place.”
“And destroy it we must!” a strange character obnoxiously hissed in my face. I had gotten dangerously close to the group, without noticing, and had finally realized what was going on; it was a protest.
“Speak from the heart! Never compromise!” Another shouted hastily, grabbing my arm and dragging me further into the crowd. People began swarming in my direction. The next thing I knew I had a sign in my hand and was following the crowd in the earnest protest they had formed.
“They are like actors reading from scripts. Some read their lines more persuasively than others,” a man dressed in all black preached as he stood tall in the front of the crowd, “but all of them manifest a public self, a persona, whose resemblance to the private person is never totally clear.” He continued his sermon as another group formed close by. Another preacher stood tall, yelling similar words into the crowd.
“This uncertain relationship between the mask and the face of Rhetorical People results in an uncertain relationship between audiences and actors, between words and meaning. Such uncertainty does no confound the communication of Serious People, who wear no masks and speak from the heart rather than from some script.” The small group cheered loudly as the preacher continued. His words were muffled in my head as my mind began to fill with questions and, certainly, concerns.
“What is this all about?” I asked the person next to me nervously. I wanted very much to leave but was too intimidated and remained in my place.
“These rhetorical scum bags are trying to convince people that what we say is too serious. Every time we are able to get people to follow our ways they are taken by the Rhetoricians and convinced that there are many other options. They think they know everything, they know nothing! GRAVITAS, GRAVITAS!” he continued shouting, a few others joined in.
“Conform to us, we will win!” a women whispered in my ear. “It is time. We know the way. You will be happy with us. You will be pleased.”
Unsure and belittled, I stumbled along. I closed my eyes as another strange hand grasped onto my arm. This had to be a bad dream. I was being pulled in two different directions but did not resist either of them. Sooner than I knew I was pushed, shoved almost, by a strange presence that overwhelmed the protestors. The shouting became louder and I could feel bodies closing in on me. I opened my eyes. It was almost as if I was being sucked into a black hole becoming ever so close to my inevitable death. I closed my eyes once more and fell to the ground.
All was quiet as I stirred back into consciousness. I sat up groggily, rubbing my head and focusing on my surroundings; I was in a dimly lit room. The walls were papered with bizarre patterns that almost came to life when the light slowly seeped through the stained glass windows. I must have somehow gotten into the Rhetorician’s building. I stood, cautiously, noticing that there was not a single piece of furniture in the room. There were, however, at least a dozen doors, all labeled and colored differently.
Suddenly, one of the doors closed behind me. I jumped and spun around, nearly crashing into another person.
“Hello,” a man said, smirking, as I stumbled back, regaining my footing. “My name is John Ramage. I’m sure you have a lot of questions.” He was a tall, average built man. His glasses were thinly rimmed and his eyes held a tremendous amount of thought behind them. His clothes were oddly matched, the patterns did not flow together at first glance, but somehow it all seemed to look alright.
“Yes. I do have a million questions. What is going on? Did you get me out of that mess? Thank you if you did. Wait, why did you? Who are those people?” I babbled then became silent and still once again. I studied the man’s face closely; he seemed calm, too calm. My head was still throbbing from the fall. It was hard to concentrate.
“In truth, our Anti-Rhetoric Spokespersons have scored more than a few valid points against Rhetorical People,” Ramage began promptly with his retort. “Then again, also in truth, our Anti-Rhetorical Spokespersons are actually Anti-Rhetoric Spokes personas, a mask we donned, a rhetorical device we employed to set up our arguments in support of rhetoric as a legitimate way of understand the world.” I looked at him curiously, almost bewildered.
“What?” I eventually asked. “Are you really talking about those protestors? You’re saying you paid them to be out there? Why would you do that? How does that prove anything about Rhetoric, or whatever you’re talking about?” I finished slightly out of breath.
“In setting them up like this, we were simply following the example of their hero, Plato, himself a master rhetorician not above using his Sophist foes like ventriloquist dummies to mouth his self-serving script. And that’s the first point to be made the in case for rhetoric’s significance—its ubiquity.” Again, he continued. I blinked with wide eyes.
“So, they don’t know they are being paid?” I asked. Ramage nodded. “It’s a kind of sick, twisted lesson to society? You are trying to show them that by protesting they are really just proving the idea of rhetoric?” He nodded again. “Right, so, what exactly IS the idea of rhetoric?” I asked, dumbfounded. Ramage began to walk and I followed. Something about this man made me trust him, I’m still not sure why.
He led us into a small office and took a seat behind his small, very organized desk. I allowed myself to sit across from him. The light was a little brighter in this room.
“Rhetoric rejects the idea that the world consists entirely of true things that are real and untrue things that are illusory and that reason is the process by which we sort them out and rid the world of error and illusion. For rhetoric, the world is full of overlapping partial truths and the task of reason is to figure out which is truest—most meaningful, most effective—in a given situation…” he was going to continue but I cut him off; my nerves had calmed down and I supposed I understood all that I could.
“I suppose it’s just like the decision making processes that we use everyday,” I stood, pacing slowly, trying to grasp all the information I could. “We don’t always come up with just one conclusion. There could be many to any given situation. That’s why the protestors aren’t exactly correct. There is never just one way to solve anything!” Ramage smiled and so did I. He stood.
“Any other questions?” he asked, still smirking.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” I began, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I do have another question. Why haven’t you asked who I am? Aren’t you at all interested in my name?” Ramage chuckled and walked to the door. He opened it, gesturing me to go through. I did.
“Ah, yes. But giving me your name would give me no idea as to who you actually are.” He informed me as he followed behind. I yielded for a moment, letting him take the lead as we walked through yet another door into a larger room. It was inexplicable inside. The walls were very tall and very obscure. There were three stations set up in the middle of the room with people lined up chaotically at each one.
“Now what?” I groaned. I had to admit that I was intrigued but I had just remembered my cozy plans for the evening and was getting tired of hazed answers.
“This is one’s identity, in a gist anyway.” Ramage stopped and glanced over the production in front of us. He crossed his arms and smiled to himself. “Many times, identity is divided into three parts. For example, Freud claimed that the human psyche, or the soul, consisted of the id, ego and superego. So our own tripartite division of identity into the given, or what we inherit, the readymade, what others construct for us, and the constructed, what we construct from that which is available to us, have some rough precedent, though our own divisions are less neat than its predecessors.”
“I’d say.” I laughed as a pile of papers fell from one station nearby. The pieces fell everywhere while people just walked over them and into each other.
“To explain each of the divisions specifically would cause us to get in the way of what’s already going on, I’m afraid,” Ramage chuckled and began to walk away. I, once more, followed. I wanted to keep close for it was difficult to hear over all of the commotion. “However, I hope you understand that your identity is created over a life time and cannot be fully expressed to others.” I nodded as we made our way back into the main room. I made my way towards the window, noticing that the shadows of the protestors had long since left.
“There are gone,” Ramage answered for me. “You may leave if you wish.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “Thanks for everything. I really do appreciate all you taught me. I would have liked a better way of approaching it though.” My face contorted as I rubbed the raw spot on my head. Ramage smirked once again.
Nothing else was said again between Ramage and I. I left with a thirst for more knowledge but also with exhaustion from life. As I continued on my routine walk home that evening I looked more closely to my surroundings. Suddenly, I decided to step off of the familiar path and turned onto an unfamiliar street. Maybe I was delusional, maybe I was lost. I’m still not sure. I do believe, however, that I had become one of those crazy Rhetoricians that day and wanted to see if a different path would really take me to the destination I longed for.
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